This application claims benefit of Japanese Application Nos. 2000-272038 filed on Sep. 7, 2000, 2000-364724 filed on Nov. 30, 2000, 2000-402680 filed on December 28, and 2001-220343 filed on Jul. 19, 2001, the contents of which are incorporated by this reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrode tip dressing apparatus of welding machines capable of effectively collecting chips generated when an electrode tip is dressed.
2. Description the Related Aft
Hitherto, an electrode tip used for spot welding is worn (subjected to deformation and abrasion) when a welding work is repeatedly carried out by using the electrode tip. When the welding work is executed by using a worn electrode tip, a desired quality of the welding work cannot be obtained. Thus, the electrode tip is periodically cleaned by dressing to maintain the quality of the welding work.
For example, Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 6-122082 discloses an art for dressing electrode tips in such a manner that the upper and lower surfaces of a dresser are clamped under a pressure between a pair of electrode tips oppositely disposed at both ends of a welding gun and then the electrode tips are dressed by polishing when the welding gun is swung about an axial center of the electrode tips.
By the way, it is recently studied to recycle the chips from a view point of reducing a material cost and environmental problems. For this purpose, a collection vessel is disposed below the dresser so as to reuse the chips collected in the collection vessel.
However, since the chip is liable to be scattered by relative swing motions between the dresser and the electrode tip or by a rotation thereof in a polishing work, all the chips can not be collected in the collection vessel, which causes problems that a chip collection efficiency is low.
Moreover, when air is blown to the dresser to prevent the chips from clogging therein, the chips are scattered by the air blown thereto, which further reduces the chip collection efficiency.
Incidentally, a copper is often as used as a material of the electrode tip for the spot welding. However, the electrode tip is ground more frequently to maintain a proper quality of the welding works, and an amount of ground or polished chips of the electrode tip is increased thereby. Thus, it is necessary to increase a chip collection rate (efficiency) and to effectively reuse the chips to reduce a material cost.
An object of the present invention is to provide a newly-developed electrode tip dressing apparatus capable of increasing a collection rate of chips which are generated when an electrode tip is dressed by polishing or grinding and of improving a recycle rate of the chips.
An electrode tip dressing apparatus of the present invention for dressing a pair of electrode tips arranged in confrontation with each other includes a dressing body having upper and lower surfaces clamped under pressure by said pair of electrode tips for dressing said pair of electrode tips through a relatively sliding motion thereof with said electrode tips; a chip capturing case for covering said dressing body and having a tip inserting port through which at least one of said electrode tips is inserted; and a shield member disposed to the tip inserting port of said chip capturing case.
According to this arrangement, the dressing body is covered with the chip capturing cases, the tip insertion ports into which the electrode tips are inserted are formed to the chip capturing cases, and the shield members are disposed to the tip insertion ports. Accordingly, the chips generated when the electrode tips are dressed can be collected in the chip capturing cases without scattering them to the outside.